Your coach says: “You could think about meditating. Create space for yourself, let your thoughts go and find a center.”
You think: “Psycho stuff. Besides, I don’t have time. And I don’t know how to do that either.”
We say: “No psycho stuff”.
Wolf Singer, a renowned brain researcher of our time, in conversation with Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist, worked out the deep, powerful and positive effect of regular meditation in ‘Beyond the Self’. And Google relies on meditation as an essential building block for personal development – for very hard, factual, neuroscience-based reasons. The accompanying booklet‘Search inside yourself‘ is also well worth reading.
Now, not everyone is as lucky as I was to be nudged appreciatively towards the topic of meditation by a good, much valued friend, trained yoga teacher (and tax consultant) and to be accompanied calmly and powerfully in my first meditations.
A few tips:
- A yoga cushion helps me. I bought mine from Klang & Stille. But you can also use a different, not too soft cushion to start with. Your hips should be higher than your knees.
- For the meditation itself, I use the‘Insight Timer‘ app:
- Choose one of the many beautiful guided meditations to start with. For example, search for “meditation: breath observation” or “breathing journey”.
- You can also meditate freely. Use the app as a timer and start with 20 minutes. Draw your attention to your breath. Other thoughts come. Observe them. And let them go. Return to your breath.
- Find a quiet place without disturbances. Just for you. Sit quietly, relaxed, upright. Place your hands together. Start the meditation. Close your eyes. From then on, time is time and unimportant.
- When you have come to the end, be grateful for the time with yourself. Do not judge. Sometimes there are many thoughts, sometimes few.
As a coach, I know that meditation is effective. Especially for people with a lot of stress and little time. Give meditation a few weeks – you will feel it for yourself. I started back then – after the first impulses. Bought a cushion. Stopped again. Meditated again. Stopped again. Meditated again. And now I take time for myself almost every day. And I am grateful for it.